II

You may say all I have been describing belongs more properly to little

Mrs. Thrush, on my right. Bless you! that woman doesn't have to think

and plan to make things comfortable. Were she set down in the desert of

Sahara, she would sweep it up, spread a rug; hang a few draperies, and

lo! it would be cosy and home-like. She can't help being and doing just

right, wherever she is put, and her husband is just like her, as good as

gold. Why, that man would bore a woman of ingenuity--a woman who had a

genius for contriving and managing. He doesn't need any cooking; he's

ready to serve just as he is, couldn't be improved. There's absolutely

nothing to be done. Mrs. Owl would get a divorce from him inside of a

month, on the ground of insipidity. Her fine capabilities for making

much out of nothing, would turn saffron for lack of use. Mr. Owl is the

mate for her. To every man according to his taste; to every woman

according to her need.

I am lying in the hammock, under the soft maple tree in my side yard,

speculating on all these matters. Summer is now upon us, for we are in

the midst of June. Yesterday was one of Lowell's rare days, but this

morning the thermometer took offense, and rose in fury. I can see the

quivering air as it radiates from the dusty, sun-beaten road, and a

certain drowsy hum in the atmosphere, palpable only to the trained ear,

tells of the great heat. Some of my neighbors are sitting on their

galleries, reading or sewing; some, like myself, are lolling in

hammocks; even the voices of the children have a certain monotonous

tone, in harmony with the stupid heaviness of the day. Only the birds

and squirrels show any life or spirit; the former are twittering above

my head, courting, it may be, or possibly discussing some detail of

household economy. They hop from bough to bough, touch up their plumage,

and chirp in a cheerful, happy sort of fashion, as if this was their

especial weather, as indeed it is. Up yonder tree, a squirrel is racing

about, in the exuberance of his glee. He has done up his work, no doubt,

and now is off for a frolic. I lie here, not a stone's throw from him,

watching his merry antics, and rejoicing to think how free from fear he

is, when all at once the leaves of his tree are cut by a flying missile,

and the next second I see my gay fellow tumble headlong from the bough,

and fall in a helpless little heap on the grass. I start up in affright,

and hear a passing boy call out to another, over the way,

"I brought him down, Jim."

Involuntarily I clinch my hands.

"You little coward!" I exclaim, "it is _you_ who should be brought down!

You are too mean to live."

He laughs brutally, and goes on, whistling indifferently, while I pick

up the dead squirrel lying at my feet.

I find myself crying, before I know it. Not alone with pity for the

squirrel; something else is hurting me.

"Is this the masculine nature?" I ask some one--I don't know whom.

Perhaps it is one of those questions which are flung upward, in a blind

kind of way, and which God sometimes catches and answers.

"Are they made this way? Was it meant that they should be brutal?"

I am still holding the squirrel and thinking, when I hear my name, and

turning see my neighbor over the way, Mrs. Purblind's brother, standing

near me.

"Good morning, Mr. Chance," I say, rather coldly.

All men are hateful to me at that moment; to my mind they all have that

boy's nature, though they keep it under cover until they know you well,

or have you in their power.

"The little fellow is dead, I suppose," he said.

"Yes," I answer with a sob which I turn away to conceal. I don't wish to

excite his mirth. Of course he would only see something laughable in my

grief, and he couldn't dream what I am thinking about.

"You mustn't be too hard on the boy, Miss Leigh," he says quietly; "it

was a brutal act, but that same aggressiveness will one day give him

power to battle in life against difficulties and temptations as well. It

will make him able to protect those whom a kind Providence may put in

his charge. Just now he doesn't know what to do with the force, and

evidently has not had good teaching. I'm sorry he did this; it hurts me

to see an innocent creature harmed, and still more I am sorry because

it has hurt you."

He is standing near me now, and as I raise my eyes, I find him looking

at me with a sweet earnestness, that wins me not only to forgive him for

being a man, but to feel that perhaps men are noble, after all.

His look and tone linger with me long after he has gone, as a cadence of

music may vibrate through the soul when both musician and instrument are

mute.

The day after this of which I have been telling, I went to a picnic

gotten up by Mrs. Purblind, for the entertainment and delectation of Mr.

Purblind's cousin, now visiting her, a frivolous young thing, between

whom and myself there was not even the weather in common, for she would

label "simply horrid" a lovely gray day, containing all sorts of

possibilities for the imagination behind its mists and clouds.

I didn't care for this picnic, and didn't see why I was invited as most

of the guests were younger than myself. But it was one of those cases

where a refusal might be misconstrued, and so I went. We sat around the

white tablecloth _en masse_, for dinner; and in the course of the

passing of viands, Miss Sprig was asked to help herself to olives that

happened to be near her.

"Yes, do, while you have opportunity," said Mrs. Purblind.

"I always embrace opportunity," replied Miss Sprig with a simper.

Whereat Mr. Chance, sitting next her, suggested that, as a synonym of

opportunity, possibly he might stand in its stead.

I detest such speeches, they are properly termed soft, for they

certainly are mushy--lacking in stamina--fiber of any sort. But I could

have endured it, as I had endured much else of the same sort that day,

had it not come from Mr. Chance. It may be foolish of me, but his tone

and his words of the day before were still with me. They were so

dignified, so sensible, so manly, that I respected and admired him. Up

to that time I had not felt that I knew him, but after he spoke in that

way, it seemed as if we were acquainted. Now I saw how utterly mistaken

I had been, and I was mortified and disgusted.

The silly little speech I have quoted was not all, by any means; there

were more of the same kind, and actions that corresponded. Evidently he

was one of those instruments which are played upon at will by the

passing zephyr. With a self-respecting woman, he was manly; with a

vapid, bold girl, he was silly and familiar. I decided that I liked

something more stable, something that could be depended upon.

I was placed in a difficult position just then. Had I acted upon my

impulse, I should have risen and walked off--such conduct is an affront

to womanhood, I think; but I was held in my place by a fear--foolish, yet

grounded, that my action would be regarded as an expression of

jealousy, the jealousy of an old maid, of a woman much younger and

prettier than herself. This is but one of the many instances of the

injustice of the world. I don't think that I am addicted to jealousy,

but I may not know myself. Possibly I might have felt jealous had I been

eclipsed by a beautiful or gifted woman, but it would be impossible for

me to experience any such emotion on seeing a man with whom I have but a

slight acquaintance, devote himself to a girl whom I should regard as

not only my mental inferior, but also as beneath me morally and socially

as well. The only sensation of which I was cognizant was a disgust

toward the man, and mortification over the mistaken estimate of his

character, that had led me, the day before, to suppose him on a footing

with myself.

As soon as possible after dinner I slipped away for a stroll. The place

was very lovely, and I felt that if I could creep off with Mother

Nature, she would smooth some cross-grained, fretful wrinkles that were

gathering in my mind, and were saddening my soul. So when the folly and

jesting were at their height I dipped into the thicket near at hand, and

dodging here and there, jumping fallen logs, and untangling my way among

the vines which embraced the stern old woods like seductive sirens, I at

last struck a shaded path, which erelong led me down through a ravine to

the waters of the big old lake. It too had dined, but instead of

yielding itself to folly, was taking its siesta. Across its tranquil

bosom the zephyrs played, stirring ripples and tiny eddies, as dreams

may stir lights and shadows on the sleeping face.

I had not walked along the beach, with the waves sighing at my feet, and

whispering all sorts of soothing nothings, for a great distance, before

I began to experience that uncomfortable reaction which sometimes arises

from splitting in two, as it were, standing off at a distance and

looking oneself in the face. I realized that I had been something of a

prig and considerable of a Pharisee. My late discomfort was not caused

by the fact that a young girl had cheapened herself, but by the fact

that a man had demeaned himself and in a manner involved me, inasmuch as

I had been led the day before by a false estimate of his character to

regard him as my social equal. After all it was this last that hurt

most; it was my little self and not my brother about whom I was chiefly

concerned.

I am not naturally sentimental or morbid, so I merely decided that

internally I had made a goose of myself and not shown any surplus of

nobility; and with a little sigh of satisfaction that I had given the

small world about me no sign of my folly, I dismissed the subject and

betook myself to an eager enjoyment of the day.

The soft June breeze played with my hair and gently and affectionately

touched my face; the lake quivering and rippling with passing emotions

stretched away from me toward that other shore which it kept secreted

somewhere on its farther side. The very sight of it, with its shimmering

greens, turquoise blue, and tawny yellow, cooled and soothed me, and ere

I knew it, I had slipped into a pleasant, active speculation on matters

of larger interest than the petty subjects which had lined my brow a

moment before. I was walking directly toward one of my families, and it

occurred to me that I might run in and make a call, while I was near at

hand. I had first become interested in them at church. I was impressed

by their cleanliness and regularity of attendance, and by a certain

judicious arrangement of their children--the parents always sitting so as

to separate the latter by their authority and order.

Another point that claimed my attention was that the children were

changed each Sunday--a fresh three succeeding the first bunch, and on

the third Sunday, one of the first three being added to a fresh two, to

make up the proper complement. Both parents had a self-respecting,

self-sacrificing look, as of people who had learned to help themselves

cautiously from the family dish, and to "put their knives to their

throats" before time; but kept all this to themselves, asking nothing

from anyone, and making their little answer without murmur or complaint.

I had, for some time, realized that the child who was now getting more

than his share of sermons, by reappearing on the third Sunday, would

soon be reduced to the level of his brethren, and a new relative would

take the place which he had been filling as a matter of accommodation. I

sought occasion to make the acquaintance of the mother of this fine

brood, on the pretext of some church work, and after that became a

regular visitor at their little home. The perfect equality of the

parents; the deference with which they treated one another; and their

quiet happiness, in spite of all labor and privation, made me realize

that they might well extend a pitying thought to some of the apparently

wealthy members of the church. We may yet live to see the day when a new

scale shall come in vogue, and some Croesus who now stands in an enviable

light, shall then pass into his true position, and become an object of

pity. Mere dollars and cents are a misleading criterion of poverty and

wealth.

I had seen my friends, and found that the mother and her new nestling

were in comparative comfort, and I was on the homeward stretch along the

beach, when I saw Mr. Chance walking toward me.

"I was commissioned to look you up," he said.

"Thank you," I replied, "I have been of age for some years."

Of course he noticed the coolness in my voice, and in some way I divined

that he knew the cause.

We went aboard our homeward-bound train about 5 o'clock.

Mr. Chance helped me on, and evidently expected to sit with me, but I

thwarted him by dropping down beside an elderly lady, an acquaintance

who happened to be in that coach. I felt no grudge against him, but I

didn't care to have him pass from such a girl as Miss Sprig to me; his

conduct with her impaired his value somewhat in my eyes. My elderly

friend saw and recognized the situation, I am sure, and governed her

later remarks accordingly.

Mr. Chance passed on, and took a seat with one of the superfluous men,

for contrary to the rule on most such occasions, the male gender was in

excess of the female. I had not expected him to return to Miss Sprig;

men always become satiated with such girls, soon or late.

My elderly acquaintance entered upon an animated conversation, that

became more and more personal, and finally reached a climax when she

leaned over, and said in a semi-whisper:

"My dear Miss Leigh, you ought to marry."

I had been told this a number of times; any one would suppose, to listen

to some of these women, that I had but to put out my hand, and pluck a

man from the nearest bush.

"I don't doubt you will marry some day, but I'm afraid you may not

choose wisely"--here she lowered her voice again--"after a man reaches

thirty-five he becomes very fixed in his ways, and I don't think it's

safe for a maiden lady to try to manage him; it needs some one of more

experience."

I knew she had Mr. Chance in mind, and I was so indignant at being

warned against a man who had never shown the first symptom of any such

folly as addressing me, that the blood mounted to my hair.

Observing this, my elderly companion whispered:

"I wasn't thinking of any one, in particular, my dear;" upon which I

grew more enraged, and the color in my face deepened until I must have

resembled an irate old turkey gobbler--"not of any one in particular, my

dear; but on general principles, I shouldn't advise such a match. A

widower would be just the thing for you, and there always are widowers,

and every year the list grows--death makes inroads, you know."

This idea, this hope of a second crop, as I had passed beyond the first

picking, was comforting. I knew perfectly well whom she had in mind for

me--a nice fat little widower, about fifty years old, who had been held

on the marital spit, until he was done to a turn.